Welsh Journals

THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS WITH the approach of the season of Peace and Goodwill, little wonder that we are more than ever shocked by the situation in which the Christian world finds itself to-day. Nation is still against nation, kingdom against kingdom, and at the end of twenty-eight months of the most terrible of all wars, peace seems as far off as ever. On earth Peace, Goodwill toward men. Never before has the phrase appeared more ironical. Would not this Christmas be more fittingly celebrated by a fast than a feast? With so many desolate homes and gaps in family circles that will never be filled again, how can we keep the gladsome Festival of Home? Or little children celebrate the Birthday of the Holy Child, when so many of their elders are torn and burdened with anxiety and uncertainty? The scoffer's question Where is thy God? has gained new force in view of the contrast between the coming of the Prince of Peace and the grim spectacle of millions of Europe's manhood engaged in the slaughter of war. And especially to those of us who across the Channel have seen something of what it all really means this Christmas comes with a very searching challenge to our faith. And yet tried as our faith has been and still is, the Christmas message revives our drooping hopes while we look not to the past, nor to the present, but to the future. We can at least re-affirm that Unto us a Child is bom, a Son is given, and that the government shall some day be upon His shoulders. The faith by which we walk-as opposed to appear- ances-is nothing if it does not make what seems far-off and shadowy, present and real. Living on forward-looking thoughts' our faith finds solid foundation for our highest hopes. For, after the historical critic has said his last word, the story of the Love that first came down at Christmas is always and everywhere true. Not all the tears of Rachels weeping for their children, not the laments of Davids over their lost Absaloms, can blind us to the Divine fact that lies at the heart of this season's message. So engrossed are we with the grim business we have on hand, that we have in the meantime lost our perspective. But if we turn once more to the Holy Child, the true Desire of all nations, we shall learn anew that the Angels' song- drowned for the moment it may be by the roar of guns-is not a meaningless mockery, but the gladdest and surest of prophecies. All else has failed. Diplomacy, statesmanship, social machinery, have all broken down. Their bankruptcy stands confessed before the world. Hague Conventions and International Arbitration Courts failed to prevent the war. and that simply because the moral level of European civilisation was not high enough to make effectual use of them. For as long as individuals and people cultivate the spirit of hatred, suspicion, and rivalry, war will always be inevitable. Nothing but right ethical and religious ideas and ideals will one day make it im- possible. Commonplace platitude," you will say but it shares the fate of all commonplaces we do not believe in them. For it is only the shallowest thinking that sees in this world-disaster the failure of Christianity. Rather, it was because Christian Europe had not enough Christianity that the nations went to war in August, 1914. As Chesterton puts it Christianity has been found difficult and it has not been tried. Our hope for the future lies in a re-valuation of the Christmas message. Too often in the past has our religion made the mistake of sanctioning the wrong values. Too often has the Church made common cause with the rivalries and animosities of the nations she should have led. But one thing standeth sure: the religion of Christ may yet become the power of gravitation which alone can hold the social world in its orbit. And it will fulfil this, its true function, when it ceases to be a mere badge of respectability or a conventional acquiescence, and exalts the service of men ovtr and above the service of any individual, class, or nation, as the highest end and value. Only the religion of love and service can put an end to antagonisms between individuals, classes, nations, and races. When this stern task of ours is over, shall we still be as we were before? Shall we be ready for a great reconciliation ? Or shall we perpetuate our mutual hatred and so prepare for another war? The fight for the future will not be won by simply wishing or believing that it will be won. The victory will come only through self-discipline and self- forgetfulness. Underlying the present war is the deeper conflict between a spiritual and a material view of life. And we may be very sure that this conflict is not going to end with the cessation of hostilities. Nor will this age-long battle be deter- mined one way or the other by the victory of either side. Most of us are still materialists-in all but theory, and the militarism which we are bent on crushing is only a peculiarly repulsive form of materialism. The war has at last revealed the supreme folly of thinking that a stable civilisation can be built on the flimsy foundation of self-interest and materialistic satisfactions. And, to change the